Griffin saga took an unexpected turn on 27 November 2019 when Riot Games Korea and KeSPA ordered cvMax's indefinite ban to be suspended, the team to be purged of management and a third party audit to be requested.

Griffin's management is about to get the boot from Riot competitions and that includes both the people directly influencing the team as well as employees and the owner of the parent company, Still8.

If you haven't been keeping tabs on the whole Griffin incident, it all started with manager Cho and coach cvMax not seeing eye to eye, continued after Cho fired cvMax right before World Championship 2019, heated up after the latter exposed the manager's corrupting influence and culminated in cvMax getting permanently banned from Riot competitions after whistleblowing. That's the TL;DR version but if you want more information, you can check our timeline of the events
.

While the public didn't shed any tears about Cho not being allowed into Riot competitions indefinitely, the people did see cvMax's ban as whistleblower retaliation. The LCK fans started calling the incident the biggest scandal in esports history since the match-fixing in StarCraft: Brood War. Western LoL fans wouldn't be silent either and the pressure continued.

Fast forward to 27 November 2019, LCK Steering Committee, consisting of Riot Games Korea and KeSPA, announced they would suspend the ban on cvMax for the time being but the alleged player abuse would be investigated again. The audit will be done by a third party this time around.

Considering Griffin's mismanagement sparked the dumpster fire, it is no wonder that they are being punished as well. Current Griffin management has to resign immediately and leave the team by the end of 2019. Furthermore, Still8 will have to liquidate all their stake in Griffin before the first day of Summer Split promotion.

League of Legends - showcase of several champion splash arts

Image: 1
/ 10

League of Legends

Griffin was fined for ~$80,000 the first time around but LCK Steering Committee didn't take into account the malicious practices regarding Kanavi's contract back then. It remains unknown why a slave contract, pushed upon a minor by Korean standards, was not investigated the first time around.

The committee's drastic changes
in decision making
conveniently happened just as the petition to the Blue House reached 200,000 signatures that would warrant an investigation into Riot KR and KeSPA by the authorities.